The Warrior Prophet (91 page)

Read The Warrior Prophet Online

Authors: R. Scott Bakker

His eyes twinkled beneath heavy brows. When he smiled, nets of wrinkles flexed about the corners of his eyes and mouth—a gift of the desert sun.
“You,” he said, “are branches of me.” His voice was deep and manytimbred, and somehow seemed to speak from her breast. “Of all peoples only you know what comes before. Only you, the Thanes of the Warrior-Prophet, know what moves you.”
While he briefed the Nascenti on those matters he and she had already discussed, Esmenet found herself thinking about Xinemus’s camp, about the differences between those gatherings and these. Mere months had passed, and yet it seemed she’d lived an entire life in the interim. She frowned at the strangeness of it: Xinemus holding court, calling out in mirth and mischief; Achamian squeezing her hand too tightly, as he sometimes did, searching for her eyes too often; and Kellhus with Serwë … still little more than a promise, though it seemed Esmenet had loved him even then—secretly.
For some strange reason, she was overcome by a sudden yen to see the Marshal’s wry Captain, Bloody Dench. She remembered her final glimpse of him, as he waited with Zenkappa for Xinemus to rejoin them, his short-cropped hair silver in the Shigeki sun. How black those days now seemed. How heartless and cruel.
What had happened to Dinchases? And Xinemus …
Had he found Achamian?
She suffered a moment of gaping horror … Kellhus’s melodic voice retrieved her.
“If anything should happen,” he was saying, “you shall hearken to Esmenet as you hearken to me …”
For I’m his vessel.
The words triggered an exchange of worried looks. Esmenet could read the sentiment well enough: what could the Master mean, placing a woman before his Holy Thanes? Even after all this time, they still struggled with the darkness of their origins. They had not utterly embraced him, as she had …
Old bigotries die hard,
she thought with more than a little resentment.
“But Master,” Werjau, the boldest among them, said, “you speak as though you might be taken from us!”
A heartbeat passed before she realized her mistake: what worried them was what his words
implied,
not the prospect of subordinating themselves to his Consort.
Kellhus was silent for a long moment. He looked gravely from face to face. “War is upon us,” he said finally, “from both without and within.”
Even though she and Kellhus had already discussed the danger he spoke of, chills pimpled her skin. Cries erupted around the table. Esmenet felt Serwë’s hands clasp about her own. She turned to reassure the girl, only to realize that Serwë had reached to reassure
her. Just listen,
the girl’s beautiful eyes said. The lunatic dimensions of Serwë’s belief had always baffled and troubled Esmenet. The girl’s conviction was more than monumental—it seemed continuous with the ground, it was so immovable.
She let me into her bed,
Esmenet thought.
For love of him
.
“Who assails us?” Gayamakri was crying.
“Conphas,” Werjau spat. “Who else? He’s been working against us since Shigek …”
“Then we must strike!” white-haired Kasaumki shouted. “The Holy War must be cleansed before the siege can be broken! Cleansed!”
“Errant madness!” Hilderuth barked. “We must negotiate … You must go to them, Master.”
Kellhus silenced them with little more than a look.
It frightened her, sometimes, the way he effortlessly commanded these men. But then it could be no other way. Where others blundered from moment to moment, scarcely understanding their own wants, hurts, or hopes, let alone those of others, Kellhus caught each instant—each soul—like a fly. His world, Esmenet had realized, was one without surfaces, one where everything—from word and expression to war and nation—was smoky glass, something to be peered
through
…
He was the Warrior-Prophet … Truth. And Truth commanded all things.
She quashed a sudden urge to hug herself in joy and astonishment. She was here—
here!
—at the right hand of the most glorious soul to have walked the world. To kiss Truth. To take Truth between her thighs, to feel him press deep into her womb. It was more than a boon, more than a gift …
“She smiles,” Werjau exclaimed. “How can she smile at a time such as this?”
Esmenet glanced at the burly Galeoth, flushing in embarrassment.
“Because,” Kellhus said indulgently, “she sees what you cannot, Werjau.”
But Esmenet wasn’t so sure … She simply daydreamed, didn’t she? Werjau had simply caught her mooning over Kellhus like an addled juvenile …
But then, why did the ground thrum so? And the stars … What
did
she see?
Something … Something without compare.
Her skin tingled. The Thanes of the Warrior-Prophet watched her, and she looked through their faces, glimpsed their yearning hearts. To think! So many deluded souls, living illusory lives in unreal worlds! So many! It both boggled her and broke her heart.
And at the same time, it was her triumph.
Something absolute.
Her heart fluttered, pinioned by Kellhus’s shining gaze. She felt at once smoke and naked flesh—something seen through and something desired.
There’s more than me … More than this—yes!
“Tell us, Esmi,” Kellhus hissed through Serwë’s mouth. “Tell us what you see!”
There’s more than
them.
“We must take the knife to them,” she said, speaking as she knew her Master would have her speak. “We must show them the demons in their midst.”
So much more!
The Warrior-Prophet smiled with her own lips.
“We must kill them,” her voice said.
 
The thing called Sarcellus hurried through the dark streets toward the hill where the Exalt-General and his Columns had quartered. The letter Conphas had sent was simple:
Come quickly. Danger stalks us
. The man had neglected to sign the letter, but then he didn’t need to. His meticulous handwriting was unmistakable.
Sarcellus turned down a narrow street that smelled of unwashed Men and animal grease. More derelict Inrithi, he realized. As the Holy War starved, more and more Men of the Tusk had turned to an animal existence, hunting rats, eating things that should not be eaten, and begging …
The starving wretches came to their feet as he walked between them. They congregated about him, holding out filthy palms, tugging at his sleeves.
“Mercy …”
they moaned and muttered.
“Merceeee.”
Sarcellus thrust them back, made his way forward. He struck several of the more insistent. Not that he begrudged them, for they’d often proved useful when the hunger grew too great. No one missed beggars.
Besides, they were apt reminders of what Men were in truth.
Pale hands reached from looted silks. Piteous cries seethed through the gloom. Then, in the gravelly voice of a drunkard, a rag-draped man before him said, “Truth shines.”
“Excuse me?” Sarcellus snapped, coming to a halt.
He seized the speaker by the shoulders, jerked his head up. Though bitten, the man’s face hadn’t been battered into submission—far from it. His eyes looked hard as iron. This, Sarcellus realized, was a man who
battered
.
“Truth,” the man said, “does not die.”
“What’s this?” Sarcellus asked, releasing the warrior. “Robbery?”
The iron-eyed man shook his head.
“Ah,” Sarcellus said, suddenly understanding. “You belong to him … What is it you call yourselves?”
“Zaudunyani.” The man smiled, and for a moment, it seemed the most terrifying smile Sarcellus had ever witnessed: pale lips pressed into a thin, passionless line.
Then Sarcellus remembered the purpose of his fashioning. How could he forget what he was? His phallus hardened against his breeches …
“Slaves of the Warrior-Prophet,” he said, sneering. “Tell me, do you know
what
I am?”
“Dead,” someone said from behind.
Sarcellus laughed, sweeping his gaze over the necks he would break. Oh, rapture! How he would shoot hot across his thigh! He was certain of it!
Yes! With so many! This time …
But his humour vanished when his look returned to the man with the iron eyes. The face beneath his face twitched into a vestigial frown …
They’re not af—
Something rained down from above … Suddenly he found himself drenched. Oil! They’d doused him in oil! He looked from side to side, blowing fluid from his lips, shaking it from his fingertips. His would-be assassins, he saw, had been doused as well.
“Fools!” he exclaimed. “Burn me, and you burn too!”
At the last instant, Sarcellus heard the bowstring twang, the flaming arrow zip through the air. He jerked to the side. The shaft struck the iron-eyed man. Flame leapt up his soiled robes, twined about his cowl.
But rather than fall, the man lunged, his eyes fixed upon Sarcellus, his arms closing in an embrace. The shaft snapped between them. Burning breast met burning breast.
Flame consumed them both. The thing called Sarcellus howled, shrieked with its entire face. It stared in horror at the iron eyes, now wreathed in blazing fire …
“Truth …” the man whispered.
 
Ikurei Conphas. How like a child he looked, his naked form half-twisted in sheets, his face tipped gently back, as though he peered into some distant sky in his dreams. General Martemus stood in the shadows, gazing down at the sleeping form of his Exalt-General, silently rehearsing the command that had brought him here—knife in hand.
“Tonight, Martemus, I will reach out my hand …”
It was unlike any he’d ever been given.
Martemus had spent most of his life following commands, and though he’d unstintingly tried to execute each and every one, even those that proved disastrous, their origins had always haunted him. No matter how tormented or august the channels, the commands he followed had always come from
somewhere,
from someplace within a beaten and debauched world: peevish officers, spiteful apparati, vainglorious generals … As a result, he had often thought that thought, so catastrophic for a man who’d been bred to serve:
I am greater than what I obey.
But the command he followed this night …
“Tonight, Martemus …”
It came from nowhere within the circle of this world.
“I will take a life.”
To answer such a command, he’d decided, was more than merely akin to worship—it was worship made flesh. All meaningful things, it now seemed to him, were but forms of prayer.
Lessons of the Warrior-Prophet.
Martemus raised the silvery blade to a shaft of moonlight, and for a shining moment it seemed to
fit
Conphas’s throat. In his soul’s eye, he saw the Imperial Heir dead, beautiful lips perched open in the memory of a final breath, glassy eyes staring far, far into the Outside. He saw blood pooled in folded linen sheets, like water between the petals of a lotus. The General glanced about the luxurious bedchamber, at the dim frescoes prancing along the walls, at the dark carpets swimming across the floor. Would it seem a simpler place, he wondered, when they found his corpse in blooded sheets?

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